Michael Posner

Friday 18 March 2011

RODNEY PINDER

Mike Posner aka Poz played a key role in our efforts to establish Reuters as a major American domestic news organisation. When I arrived in DC in 1984 people often confused “Rooters” with the drain-clearing company with the Rota on the top. When I left a few years later, everybody - even airport immigration officials - knew all about Reuters, and we were firmly established in Congress, at State Department and the White House, thanks to the drive, the talent, the contacts, the writing and the news-breaking abilities of Poz and many other American staff in the bureau. Poz was not just a supreme professional, he was a good friend, highly supportive to a foreigner, last based in Africa, who had stumbled into the Washington bear pit. And he was FUN. He enlivened not only the bureau with his irrepressible and irreverent sense of humour but also many a long day and night covering marathon Republican and Democratic conventions. I can still hear his roaring laugh as we searched Bourbon Street of an evening for spiritual renewal after a stifling day at the Republican convention in New Orleans. A great pro, a huge talent, a loyal friend. As we often said then, whoever made Mike threw away the mould. ■

A Staff Benevolent and Welfare Fund (later renamed Reuters Centenary Fund) was established on 7 March 1951 with a transfer from the Pension Fund Reserve and a supplementary grant authorised by the board to mark the company’s centenary celebrations. Its purpose is to deal with special cases of hardship affecting staff members and pensioners and their dependents.